


Different Kinds of Makeover

by orphan_account



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
Genre: Gen, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 14:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of a character study, and a bit of exploration into what happens after Amber takes over GeneCo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Kinds of Makeover

Transcript excerpt from 2054 talk show interview:

_Interviewer: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us, Ms. Sweet! I know you're a busy woman._  
 _Sweet: Oh, I know, right? But it's no trouble. I can always spare time to speak to my public._  
 _[She blows kisses at the audience. The audience cheers.]_  
 _Interviewer: What's it like to be the president of GeneCo?_  
 _Sweet: It's a lot of work, but I'm glad to do it. It's really fulfilling to do things that is, like, for the good of mankind._  
 _Interviewer: What are you working on at the moment?_  
 _Sweet: I'd like to do some more to try to raise awareness about zydrate addiction, because, you know, a lot of people are totally oblivious to what a serious problem this is. I myself am addicted to zydrate._  
 _[gasps from the audience]_  
 _Sweet: Yes, it's something I've struggled with for many years. And that's why I've founded the Amber Sweet Rehabilitation Center, so that others can get the support they need._  
 _[Applause.]_  
 _Sweet: Thank you, thank you._

* * *

 

Amber had never thought there was a problem with her drug use. It was only pathetic when poor people did it. At least, that's what she kept telling herself. But one day, a few months before that night at the opera, she lay in the gutter, hair mussed and wet from sewer water and a string of drool running from the corner of her open mouth all the way down to her chin. As she lay there, she realized. It was pathetic. It was incredibly pathetic. Small wonder her father was ashamed of her. She had to make something of herself.

But for a girl born into the richest family in the world, a girl who never worked a day in her life and never needed to, what jobs are there? What could she do? She didn't know. And then suddenly she did. She would sing. She would be amazing. She would be famous and everyone would love her as much as they loved that damn Mag. Most of all her father. And her brothers would be so jealous, so mad that their stupid baby sister had ended up the best of them all. And she would kick the Z. She would.

Time passed. She didn't kick the Z. She didn't even nudge it. She couldn't. She thought she'd had it under control, but it was like the drug had crept up behind her when she wasn't looking and grabbed her around the throat. She felt trapped. Powerless. It was a new feeling for a Largo child. So, fueled by her own feelings of helplessness, she practiced her singing harder than ever before. She wrote her own song, wrote the music, designed a costume and the set and the lights--everything. She put everything into that performance to show once and for all that she was the best. The best singer, the best of the Largos, the best human being ever to walk the face of the motherfucking planet, and no one would take that away from her. Least of all herself.

And then she lost her face.

Not figuratively losing face, like that time she was too drugged up to make an appearance to talk about her zydrate support group. She literally lost her fucking face.

It'd been slipping off all night. She kept smoothing it back into place, carefully so she wouldn't smudge her makeup. But then, standing in the spotlight, during what should have been her moment of glory, it just peeled off and fell on the floor. She squealed--in horror, in pain, in embarrassment. The audience booed. In her head she could hear her father's voice: " _I warned you about this happening! Happiness is not a warm scalpel..._ " She bent down and picked up her face, then scurried off with it, along with the last shreds of her dignity.

And then her father announced to the crowd that he was terminally ill. Amber was horrified. It always seemed like her brothers were just waiting for the old coot to drop dead, but she loved him. She just wanted to make him proud. As he hacked and coughed, wandering around the stage on his last twinges of life, she approached him, but he waved her off like a mosquito. Waved them all off. "Get away, don't need you, you're not men, you're creatures," he growled. "You! You're not my daughter, you're a monster. You're an embarrassment. Get away."

Amber lowered her eyes, hung her head. If there had been flesh on the front of her face it would have been flushed, but as it were, the exposed muscles simply grew damper with blood. She turned and walked away, blinking her eyes rapidly, a bit of a stinging in the bridge of her nose. A tear or two slipped down her facial muscles, burning like hell. Behind her, her father gasped for breath. "When I am gone, GeneCo will crumble. The world will miss Rotti Largo."

Amber walked back to her dressing room and stared at herself in the mirror, leaning on the counter in front of it. No more selfishness. No more drugs. No more surgery. Okay, one more surgery. She couldn't just walk around with no face. But after that...

Done. Cold turkey.

* * *

 

"You want us to do  _what_?" Luigi said. Well, yelled. He yelled pretty much everything. "You're shitting me."

"I'm not."

"What do psychiatrists even do?"

"It's like getting a makeover. But for your _brain_ , and your personality and stuff." said Amber, trying to exude contagious enthusiasm. "We all need it. Especially you two, because you're both enormous cunts."

"I don't need a psychiatrist," Pavi scoffed. "Everyone loves the Pavi! There is nothing wrong with me. Nothing. I am the embodiment of perfection."

"Oh yeah, you fruity fuckin' face-stealer?"

"This 'fruit' gets laid more in a week than you do in a year."

"Both of you shut up!" Amber snapped. They both fell silent and looked at her. "You see what I mean?"

"He needs it, not me," Luigi and Pavi protested in unison, then both glared at each other.

"We _all_ need it," Amber insisted.

"But where will you find a psychiatrist? I don't think there are any of them left. Psychiatry is so....out," Pavi said, making a face.

"We'll bring it back in," said Amber. "And we'll find a psychiatrist somewhere."

"Can't we simply speak to a Gentern and call it good?" Pavi whined.

"No. If I'm going to run this company properly, I have to set a good example and be healthy, in body and mind. We all do."

Her brothers stared at her stonily. She thought back to a book she'd stumbled upon a few days ago, the advice from which had helped her convince her brothers to let her take over GeneCo in the first place. What was the last way to win people to your way of thinking?

_Throw down a challenge._

"What's the matter? Are you  _scared_?"

Two hours and one long search of GeneCo records later, they were standing in front of a tiny little house on the edge of town. The windows were cloudy with dust, the grayed blue paint peeling. It looked like the roof might cave in at any moment.

"Is this...it?" Pavi made a face. "I thought doctors were supposed to be well-paid."

"What a fuckin' dump," said Luigi.

Amber went up to the front door and knocked. The door fell right over and onto the floor with a crash, raising a cloud of dust. Amber jumped back with a squeak and glanced back at her brothers.

"Ladies first, sister," said Pavi with a smirk and a mocking bow. Luigi snorted. Amber resisted the urge to flip them both off and went inside.  
Every inch of every surface was covered in books. The bookshelves overflowed, the floor was carpeted with them, every nook and cranny was stuffed--books books books books books. Amber thought books were alright in small doses, but she had no idea why anyone would want so many of them. She had even less of an idea when one of her stiletto heels caught on one of the books and she only avoided falling flat on her ass by grabbing Luigi (who glared at her and shrugged her off).

"Hello?" Amber called, looking around. "Anybody home?"

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this quite a while ago, but I decided to break in my ao3 account by posting it. It's the first and only Repo fic I've written, so. lskdfj i am so rusty at this whole "posting fanfic" thing  
> anyway if you have made it this far thanks for reading!!


End file.
